A Cold Christmas On Tap (no bitter air or major snows either)

8 hours, 46 minutes of daylight yesterday in the metro area. Worst day of the year to get a tan.

3 seconds of additional daylight today. Woo hoo!

Sun-Starved

One benefit to living on the tundra: our coldest days are often sunny. No lake-effect gray. Many people I bump into are more impacted by a lack of sun than winter chill. No wonder we light candles and turn on holiday lights.

Yesterday’s Winter Solstice brought 8 hours and 46 minutes of daylight. Yep, we’re still standing. Today: daylight will be 3 seconds longer. We pick up over 4 minutes by December 31, 36 minutes within a month.

Our coldest weather usually comes the 3rd week of January, but I still don’t see any widespread subzero weather for the metro, looking out 2 weeks. A typical winter (?) brings an average of 30 subzero nights. My gut: maybe 4-6 nights below zero this winter, contining a trend we’ve seen in recent decades.

No weather drama for us looking out into early January: mid-20s today, then colder tomorrow as the latest clipper exhales teens south of the border. Christmas looks cold, but dry – long range models hinting at a couple inches of snow on Friday.

If anyone asks (doubtful) 46.9 percent of America is snow-covered. 20 inches of snow near Madison! We’ll get our white Christmas, just barely.

No thaws in sight, but the days are getting longer now.

What Happens At The Solstice? Well, the world doesn’t necessarily end, for one. Here’s a good explanation from timeanddate.com: “The December solstice occurs when the sun reaches its most southerly declination of -23.5 degrees. In other words, it is when the North Pole is tilted 23.5 degrees away from the sun. Depending on the Gregorian calendar, the December solstice occurs annually on a day between December 20 and December 23. On this date, all places above a latitude of 66.5 degrees north (Arctic Polar Circle) are now in darkness, while locations below a latitude of 66.5 degrees south (Antarctic Polar Circle) receive 24 hours of daylight. Use the Sunrise and Sunset calculator to find the number of daylight hours during the December solstice in cities worldwide. The sun is directly overhead on the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere during the December solstice. It also marks the longest day of the year in terms of daylight hours for those living south of the equator. Those living or travelling south from the Antarctic Circle towards the South Pole will see the midnight sun during this time of the year…”

Solstice Trivia. Yesterday was the Winter Solstice, the shortest daylight of the year. Today we pick up 3 seconds of daylight, 4 minutes and 9 seconds of additional daylight by December 21. For the record, MSP has lost about 6 hours and 50 minutes of daylight since the Summer Solstice, on June 21. Thanks to D.J. Kayser at WeatherNation TV for passing this along.

2012: probably the warmest on record for the USA; 8th warmest worldwide.

July: hottest month in record-keeping U.S. history, averaging 77.6 degrees. Over the year, more than69,000 local heat records set in 2012 in the USA — including 356 locations in 34 states that hit their highest-ever temperature mark. Source: AP and NOAA.

2,300 U.S. counties declared Agricultural Disaster Areas this year, due to extreme drought, the worst since 1956.

9.2 million acres of land burned in 2012, roughly the size of Maryland – 3rd largest area since 1960.5 countries set all-time heat records in 2012; no all-time cold records were observed.

18% Summer sea ice in the Arctic dropped 18% from its previous record. Some scientists report close to an 80% drop in sea ice volume in the last 30 years.

Book It: 2012, The Hottest U.S. Year On Record. Here’s an excerpt from Climate Central: “…Last week NOAA announced that 2012 was “likely” to be the warmest year on record in the 48 states, based on temperatures through November. At some point, however, likelihood turns into certainty. Does a warm December push the nation to the point where it is impossible for 2012 to be anything but the warmest year ever recorded in the U.S.? To answer that question Climate Central did the math, and the results are in.

There is a 99.99999999 percent chance that 2012 will be the hottest year ever recorded in the continental 48 states, based on our analysis of 118 years of temperature records through Dec. 10, 2012….”

A Very White Christmas. NOAA data shows some 18-12″ snowfall amounts from Thursday’s blizzard in the Madison, Wisconsin area – as much as 15-18″ just south of Eau Claire.

USA Snow Cover. As of Friday morning 46.9% of the USA had some snow on the ground, up from 5.4% on November 21, 2012. Map above courtesy of NOAA.

Cold, But Not Quite Bitter. Today will be the “mildest” day in sight (mid to upper 20s), northwest winds pumping colder air into Minnesota tomorrow, setting the stage for a chilly Christmas. In fact temperatures Christmas Day will be stuck in single digits north and low teens south. The next chance of accumulating snow? Late Friday into Saturday – maybe a couple of inches. Too early to get specific.

Christmas Day. The map above shows the ECMWF (European) solution for 18z Tuesday; heavy rain and possible T-storms from Houston to New Orleans and Mobile, heavy, windswept rain for the Pacific Northwest and wet snow for Maine and Massachusetts – otherwise a fairly dry, chilly Christmas Day from coast to coast. Map: WSI.

A Little Snow A Week From Today? Keep your expectations low – do not get your hopes up. We’re in a prolonged drought, and it’s showing up in snowfall totals and storm track trends (most of the big storms detouring south and east of Minnesota). WSI’s ECMWF model shows a little light snow brushing southern Minnesota next Saturday, the best chance of a couple inches south/east of MSP.

Mad-Town Lives Up To Its Name. Matt Porcelli sent in this photo of the snowy craziness in Madison, Wisconsin. At one point Thursday heavy snow was accompanied by thunder and lightning. It must have looked like the (snowy) End of the World.

2012: Second Costliest Year For Weather Disasters? Between the drought (worst since 1956 nationwide) and “Sandy” damage should easily go over $100 billion. Here’s an excerpt from USA Today: “Led by the devastation from Hurricane Sandy and the Midwest drought, 2012 will likely be the second-costliest year for weather and climate disasters on record, according to data released today by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The costliest year for damages in the USA was 2005, when four hurricanes lashed the nation, including Katrina. The USA has endured 11 separate weather and climate disasters so far this year that led to damages of at least $1 billion, NOAA reported today. This follows 2011, when an all-time record of 14 separate billion-dollar disasters were reported…”

349 Americans lost their lives due to extreme weather so far in 2012, 131 of them in Hurricane Sandy. Source: NOAA.

Duluth-Superior Ski Hills Seed Clouds With Snow. I’ve seen this phenomenon show up in the metro area, when atmospheric conditions are ideal. The Duluth News Tribune has more details: “…He’s not certain exactly what happens, but Packingham said the snowfall is not simply snow from the snowmaking machines blowing into town. Conditions had to be just right; the temperature at about 20 degrees and a light southwesterly wind, he said. Too much wind or temperatures too warm or too cold and the particles wouldn’t have made it up to the clouds. Packingham said he thinks tiny particles from the snowmaking machines drifted up into low-hanging clouds, in effect seeding the clouds, spurring snowfall downwind of the ski hills for more than a mile. That’s farther than falling snow can blow from those machines, he said…”

Suddenly There’s A Meadow In The Ocean With “Flowers” Everywhere. Here’s a clip of a terrific story from Robert Krulwich at NPR: “It was three, maybe four o’clock in the morning when he first saw them. Grad student Jeff Bowman was on the deck of a ship; he and a University of Washington biology team were on their way back from the North Pole. It was cold outside, the temperature had just dropped, and as the dawn broke, he could see a few, then more, then even more of these little flowery things, growing on the frozen sea. “I was absolutely astounded,” he says. They were little protrusions of ice, delicate, like snowflakes. They began growing in the dry, cold air “like a meadow spreading off in all directions. Every available surface was covered with them.” What are they?…”

“If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading…” – Lao Tsu, 550 B.C.

Climate Story Of The Year: Extreme Weather From Superstorms To Drought Emerges As Political, Scientific Gamechanger. Here’s an excerpt from Think Progress: “This year brought staggering weather extremes, record loss of Arctic ice and a growing body of scientific analysis linking the two. Those extremes, plus Superstorm Sandy, raised public concern about the immediate threat posed by climate change, providing a palpable debunking of the (mistaken) belief that climate change will impact only future generations or people in faraway lands. The superstorm — which scientists explained was made far more destructive by manmade climate change – hit the media where it lives and may have been a game changer for many of them, as the Bloomberg Businessweek cover suggests…”

Global Catastrophes In Perspective. Here’s an excerpt of a terrific TED Talk, from climate scientist Mark Boslough at Huffington Post: “…One way to compare various threats is to determine how many people die, on average, every year. We can use a theoretical number, based on calculations, for asteroids, and compare it to numbers compiled by the World Health Organization. Here’s the resulting table, based on one in Defending Planet Earth:”

Cause

Expected Deaths Per Year

Shark attacks

3-7

Asteroids

91

Firearms accidents

2,500

Earthquakes

36,000

Climate Change

150,000

Malaria

1,000,000

Traffic accidents

1,200,000

Air pollution

2,000,000

HIV/AIDS

2,100,000

Tobacco

5,000,000

“Asteroids and climate change are the only two threats in the table that can have abrupt and global consequences, and to which everyone on the planet is exposed, regardless of their lifestyle or personal behavior. In principle, they are both preventable. In both cases mitigation would require international agreements and cooperation. But would such collaboration even be possible if a threatening asteroid were discovered, or would we be bogged down in the same kind of denial and obstruction that has prevented action on climate change?…”

Drought, Icemelt, Superstorms: A Review Of 2012’s Environmental News. The Guardian has a good summary of yet another crazy year, in the U.S and the U.K. Here’s an excerpt: “…By June it was clear that Arctic sea ice was melting faster than usual. But ice scientists and environment groups were shocked when the 2007 record low extent was passed on 9 September, and a further 500,000sq km of ice was lost before it reached its lowest ever point of 3.41m sq km – 18% less than the previous record – on September 16. What worried scientists was that there had not been any major storms or oceanic events to break the ice up more than usual. The National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado, along with other satellite ice monitoring organisations in Japan and Norway, attributed the record loss to rapid warming in the Arctic and a continuing loss of older, thicker ice. “We are now in uncharted territory,” said NSIDC director Mark Serreze….”

2012: Another Record-Setter, Fits Climate Forecasts. Maybe the professional deniers aren’t looking at the same data I am – we’ve had 2 years of some of the most extreme weather ever recorded, not just in the USA but worldwide. Here’s a summary of the atmospheric craziness from AP: “… This past year’s weather was deadly, costly and record-breaking everywhere — but especially in the United States. If that sounds familiar, it should. The previous year also was one for the record books. “We’ve had two years now of some angry events,” said Deke Arndt, U.S. National Climatic Data Center monitoring chief. “I’m hoping that 2013 is really boring.” In 2012 many of the warnings scientists have made about global warming went from dry studies in scientific journals to real-life video played before our eyes: Record melting of the ice in the Arctic Ocean. U.S. cities baking at 95 degrees or hotter. Widespread drought. Flooding. Storm surge inundating swaths of New York City…”

Map: NOAA, National Climatic Data Center.

Goodbye New York, Hello Minneapolis. I’ve gone on record speculating that climate change will probably wind up being a good thing, overall, for my home state of Minnesota. We have amazing water resources, and most of the computer models show the worst drying taking place south and west of Minneapolis – St. Paul. That’s the one big wild card: will we wind up wetter or drier? Here’s an interesting video clip from The Economist: “WILL parts of Manhattan be left by people seeking higher, dryer ground? In the aftermath of another UN climate conference, our correspondents discuss migration and adaptation.”

WSJ’s “Climate Dynamite” Is A Dud. I like the Wall Street Journal. I’m a subscriber, in fact. But when it comes to climate change and their editorial pages they’re seriously out to lunch by not acknowledging the science. Here’s a review of a recent WSJ post that diminished the perceived risk caused by a warming planet, from Media Matters: “In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Matt Ridley attempted to cast doubt on the severity of manmade climate change, arguing that future warming will be modest and “good” for the planet. But experts say the author flubbed the science, and continue to project that the earth will warm between 2 and 4.5 degrees Celsius (or about 3.5 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit), unless mitigating action is taken. Ridley’s argument goes something like this: climate models are “unproven.” Therefore, it is now possible to rely solely on “observations” — which show that temperatures are “no higher than they were 16 years ago”–to determine that a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide by the end of the century would cause modest warming. Further, that amount of warming would be a “net good.” Putting aside the fact that Ridley cites a “semiretired successful financier” and an unnamed scientist to support his claims, his arguments are not well-founded. Or, as John Abraham, an IPCC reviewer and the director of the Climate Science Rapid Response Team, put it to Media Matters: the column “has such elementary errors in it that [it] casts doubt on the author’s understanding of any aspects of climate change.….”

Error-Riddled Matt Ridley Piece Lowballs Climate Change, Discredits Wall Street Journal. World Faces 10F Warming. Here’s another retort to the WSJ “story” from Joe Romm at Think Progress: “Every major projection of future warming makes clear that if we keep listening to the falsehoods of the anti-science crowd and keep taking no serious action to reduce carbon pollution we face catastrophic 9°F to 11°F [5°C to 6°C] warming over most of the U.S. (see literature review here). The Wall Street Journal, however, has published a piece, “Cooling Down the Fears of Climate Change,” that (falsely) asserts observations suggest global warming will be so low as to “be benificial.” This risible piece by Matt Ridley is so riddled with basic math and science errors it raises the question of how the Journal can possibly maintain its reputation as a credible source of news and financial analysis. Ridley and the Journal apparently don’t know the difference between water vapor and clouds. They don’t understand the basic concept of climate sensitivity. And they can’t do simple math. Naturally, the climate deniers have embraced this nonsense and spread it across the internet…”

Graphic credit: “Projected warming even with (an unlikely) low climate sensitivity of between 1.5°C and 2.0°C from Michael Ring et al 2012. A WSJ op-ed that cites this work absurdly concludes “Evidence points to a further rise of just 1°C by 2100.” Not even close.“

Notice Any Trends? Many people are fixated on the aerial coverage of ice, when volume may be a better determination of what’s really going on at the top of the world. The graphs above show volume of Arctic Ice, which has dropped an estimated 80% in recent years. We set a record minimum for Arctic ice in September of this year; the previous 6 years have seen the lowest ice levels ever observed. 2013 predictions show a projected decrease of 2,000 cubic kilometers of ice. Source here.

How Bad Will Climate Change Get For The Eastern U.S.? Look At These Crazy Maps. Here’s an excerpt from a story at theatlanticcities.com: “…This latest data comes from a recent study, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, which used a high-resolution climate modeling system to project bad news down to an impressively local level, examining what we might see in the 20 largest cities east of the Mississippi come the late 2050s. By then, researchers from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville have calculated, heat waves in New York City could be 3.58 degrees Celsius hotter in intensity than they are now, with the average one lasting nearly two days longer (these projections are compared to a baseline of climate data between 2001 and 2004). Cleveland has it the worst, with a heat wave temperature increase of 3.71 degrees Celsius, followed by Philadelphia (3.69). The researchers project that heat waves will grow worse particularly across the Northeast and Midwest, bringing the North and South to roughly equal hot-weather fates…”

Link Found Between Global Warming And Volcanic Activity. This one made me do a triple-take; here’s an excerpt from gizmag.com: “It’s no secret that volcanic eruptions can cool the planet by spewing ash and droplets of sulfuric acid into the atmosphere that obscure the sun. Now researchers at Germany’s GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel and Harvard University have found evidence that suggest the reverse could also be true. The researchers have discovered a strong historical link between global temperature increases and increases in volcanic activity…”

Global Warming Experts Should Think More About The Cold War. Here’s an excerpt of a thought-provoking article from Bloomberg.com: “Every year the United Nations convenes diplomats from more than 190 nations to negotiate a climate change treaty, and in many years negotiators go home with little more than the promise of another annual meeting. After the failure of the 18th such event earlier this month in Doha, diplomats and organizers should focus less on the UN exercise than on combing history for a more suitable model. They might find at least three lessons from the history of arms control…”

A 10 Year Old’s Reflections On Global Warming. Here’s an excerpt from a story at Mother Nature Network: “A few weeks ago, my daughter was assigned to write an essay for her fourth-grade class about an issue that she felt was worth speaking up about. The topic she chose was global warming. As the daughter of a greenie, this was not surprising to me. She has been hearing about environmental issues in general since the first time I read “The Lorax” to her as an infant. Still, contrary to what some might think, I try not to harp on eco-issues too much at home. My kids are taught to recycle and turn off the faucet while brushing their teeth. They know littering is a no-no. But we have never before sat down and had a frank conversation about global warming. So what did surprise me about her essay was her understanding of the issue and the importance of doing something about it….”

About Paul Douglas

Paul Douglas is a meteorologist, author, entrepreneur, and software expert in Minneapolis-St.Paul, Minnesota. He is a nationally recognized meteorologist with over 30 years of broadcast television and radio experience.